After supper with my parents, I went to my room to change into my snooping clothes. Black shirt, black pants, black sneakers.
I stared in the mirror.
I wasn’t a teacher anymore. I was just me.
A Goofball.
And I was facing a case that did not want to be solved.
“Is this the end?” I asked myself. “Have we finally met a mystery we can’t solve? Are the great Goofball cases a thing of the past?”
Knock-knock. My dad poked his head in. “Are you talking to yourself, Jeff?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes. I mean … Dad, this is a tough mystery. Stuff is disappearing and we have no clues. The kindergartners know something, but they’re outgoofing us at every turn. Miss Becker’s coming back in the morning, and so far we’ve failed.”
Dad listened quietly as I told him everything. Then he said, “When I feel bad about something, you know what I do?”
“I think of my family. You, your mom, Sparky. Then I realize I can do anything.”
I thought about that. “The Goofballs are kind of my family,” I said.
“They are,” he said.
“Goof!” said Sparky.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “Sparky, let’s trot!”
Twenty minutes later, we all met in the parking lot outside school.
Before anything else, I hugged my Goofball family. They didn’t even ask why. Then we started looking for clues like the ace detectives we are.
First of all, the parking lot was empty except for Principal Higgins’s blue minivan, a couple of cars that belonged to parents, and one truck that said BOGGS BUILDING COMPANY on it.
The back doors of the truck were open.
“Just tools and buckets of green paint the color of pistachios,” said Mara, peeking in. “And orange the color of oranges.”
“Mmm,” said Brian. “Nuts and fruit.”
“Except,” said Kelly, “our school doesn’t have any orange and green paint.”
“Aha!” said Mara. “I totally have it!”
“You do?” asked Kelly.
“No,” Mara said. “I’m still just practicing.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said. “Now, let’s get into school before anyone sees us.”
Because Principal Higgins was still at work, the school doors were open.
Inside, the halls were dim, but Brian had thoughtfully taped a flashlight to each shoulder. He flicked them on, put his super nose back on, and sniffed.
“I smell orange paint!” he said.
“The workers are finishing up,” Kelly said.
“Which means,” said Mara with a smile, “that we’ll finally see if any of the missing stuff turned up in Miss B.’s new classroom.”
“Great idea,” I said. “I’m amazed that your brain can still think after today.”
“My brain can’t explain it,” Mara said.
“Mine probably could,” said Brian. “But the government would be mad at me. Come on.”
We crept upstairs. Miss Becker’s new classroom stood across the hall from the library. Its lights were on. The room was neat and beautiful.
“It’s a perfect kindergarten classroom,” I said. “But every stick of furniture in it is brand-new.”
“Nothing from the old classroom is here,” said Kelly. “Now I know how Miss B. feels.”
“It’s like the past has been wiped away,” Mara said. “Everything’s been forgotten.”
“If we don’t solve this case, the Goofballs will be forgotten, too,” Brian said. “We will have F-A —”
“Don’t spell it!” I said. “Our first Goofball mystery happened in that classroom downstairs. We can’t let this mystery be our last. We just can’t!”
They all looked at me. Even Sparky.
There was a moment right there in that hallway. I wanted to write it down in my cluebook, but I wasn’t sure how.
Finally, I wrote this.
“What now?” Mara asked.
I looked through my cluebook. “We go back to Miss Becker’s classroom. There’s something we’re missing.”
Two minutes later, we opened her classroom door … and screamed.
“We’re not missing something,” said Kelly. “We’re missing everything!”
The classroom was completely empty!
The only things left were the empty cubbies at the back of the room.
“We’ve failed!” Mara cried, as she fell to her knees. “We promised Miss Becker that we would find her stuff. But we’ve failed!”
Brian hung his head. “F … A … I …”
“Wait!” I said, turning off Brian’s shoulder flashlights. “Look over there.”
A tiny light was shining out from behind the cubbies.
Sparky crouched, which is hard to do for a dog so low to the ground.
Step by slow step, he approached the cubbies. He sniffed all around them.
“Goof?” he whisper-barked.
“What is it, Sparky?” asked Kelly.
“It could be a trap,” said Brian.
He whipped out a ruler, a compass, duct tape, three playing cards, the hook from a wire coat hanger, and a chocolate bar.
With his amazing inventing fingers, Brian invented an invention to measure the angle of the cubby and its distance from the wall.
He measured it twice. “This isn’t right.…”
“I know it isn’t,” said Mara. “What’s the chocolate bar for?”
“Inspiration!” said Brian, and he popped it into his mouth as he measured it a third time. “Now I get it! Everybody, help me push these cubbies out of the way.”
In fact, Brian didn’t really need our help. The cubbies seemed to be on brand-new rollers, and they moved easily and silently aside.
When we slid them away, we saw that where the back of the classroom should be was … no back of the classroom!
“An escape hatch!” whispered Mara.
All at once, I whipped open my cluebook to the first clues from yesterday afternoon.
“Ha!” I announced. “I bet this leads to the secret elevator room that Scarlet told us her father discovered. Sparky, lead the way!”
“W-A-Y!” said Brian.
We followed Sparky into the hole like train cars following an engine into a tunnel.
When we stood up on the other side, we were nearly blinded by bright orange and green walls!
Kelly gasped. “Where in the world are we?”
“Welcome to Wonderland!” said the tiny and unmistakable voice of Scarlet Boggs.
